A42757:793
Aaron's rod blossoming, or, The divine ordinance of church-government vindicated so as the present…Aarons rod blossoming, or, The divine ordinance of church-government vindicated so as the present…
Aaron's rod blossoming, or, The divine ordinance of church-government vindicated so as the present Erastian controversy concerning the distinction of civill and ecclesiastical government, excommunication, and suspension, is fully debated and discussed, from the holy scripture, from the Jewish and Christian antiquities, from the consent of latter writers, from the true nature and rights of magistracy, and from the groundlessness of the chief objections made against the Presbyterial government in point of a domineering arbitrary unlimited power / by George Gillespie ...Aarons rod blossoming, or, The divine ordinance of church-government vindicated so as the present Erastian controversie concerning the distinction of civill and ecclesiasticall government, excommunication, and suspension, is fully debated and discussed, from the holy scripture, from the Jewish and Christian antiquities, from the consent of latter writers, from the true nature and rights of magistracy, and from the groundlesnesse of the chief objections made against the Presbyteriall government in point of a domineering arbitrary unlimited power / by George Gillespie ...
London: printed by E.G. for Richard Whitaker, 1646
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
3. Let him be to thee as an Heathen; if it be meant of keeping no civil company, he must show us that the Jews of old were and Christians under the new Testament are forbidden to keep civill company with Heathens and those that are without the Church. He goeth about to prove that the phrase is taken from the practice of the Jews in that age, pag. 4. But how doth he prove it? He citeth some places to prove that the Israelites might not marry with the Canaanites, but he doth not prove that they might not keep civill company with any of the Heathens. There was no such favour nor fellowship permitted between the Israelites and the Canaanites, as between the Israelites and other Gentiles who came among them from other Lands, as Tostatus noteth in Matth. 26. quaest. 43. The reason was because God had destined the Canaanites to utter destruction, and that the whole Land of Canaan should be given to the children of Israel. Only some few by special dispensation were spared as the Gibeonites because Joshua and the Princes had sworn unto them, and Rahab with her kindred because she saved the spies. But such extraordinary cases excepted, the Israelites ought not to permit any of the Canaanites to live, nor receive them though they had been willing to be circumcised as Tostatus there thinketh. However that great distance and alienation in point of fellowship between the Israelites and the Canaanites, was not qua Heathens, but qua Canaanites, otherwise the children of Israel had been obliged to root out other Nations as well as the Canaanites. Yea the Law puts an express difference between the Nations, in so much that some of them were not to be abominate, though others were, Deut. 23. 7. Thou shalt not abhor an Edomite, for he is thy brother: thou shalt not abhor an Egyptian, because thou wast a stranger in his Land. The very Canaanites themselves were by the Law, Deut. 20. 10, 11. ⟨p. 368⟩[…] ⟨p. 369⟩[…] ⟨p. 370⟩to have so much favour as an offer of peace, which if any of their Cities had accepted, that City was not to be cut off, but the people thereof were to be tributaries, and to serve Israel, and so permitted to live among them.